But on Sunday – and on a bill concerning no less pressing an issue than beer drinking on “brew bikes” – the fourth-term Democrat appeared to loosen up.

Brown signed legislation that evening allowing people on pedicabs with as many as 15 riders to imbibe if their city permits it and if a safety monitor is on board. Then he put down his pen and took a brief ride on a beer bike in Sacramento.

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“Pedal harder, governor,” a woman called out in a video posted by Brown’s office on Twitter. “Pedal faster.”

Brown signed Senate Bill 530, by Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, without comment. But he was accompanied on the beer bike by his wife, Anne Gust Brown, his executive secretary, Nancy McFadden, and his two dogs. A Twitter account managed for one of them, Sutter, provided some reasoning for his decision: